Voting by mail is becoming increasingly popular as mobile and multi-tasking citizens find it difficult or inconvenient to appear at the polling station within the designated hours. Some states, such as Oregon, have even adopted voting by mail as the standard system. Maintaining both the integrity and the privacy of the voting process requires that two competing factors be resolved. First, it is essential to ensure that the counted votes are from legitimate voters and that they have voted only once. Secondly, to ensure privacy, it is essential to ensure that identity of the voter is not matched to their ballot. Absentee ballots must also be scaleable for elections in which multiple candidates or referendum questions cause the ballot to become long.
A typical solution used for absentee ballots in a nearby town is a three-part system. An anonymous ballot (A) is completed by the voter and sealed in a signed inner envelope (B). The sealed signed inner envelope (B) is placed within an outer mailing envelope (C) that is mailed to the appropriate entity such as a board of election. At the time of the ballot count, the outer envelopes (C) are opened and the signatures on the inner envelopes (B) are compared with the registered voter's signature on record. If they match, and if only one ballot is received from that voter within the designated time period, for example, by the end of the voting day, then the ballot (A) is removed from the inner envelope (B) and placed in an anonymous stack of ballots that have been verified or determined as legitimate for counting. In this manner the legitimacy of the votes is determined first and the private votes are subsequently tabulated. If the signature on the inner envelope (B) does not match the town records, however, the inner envelope (B) containing the sealed ballot (A) is set aside for further review. Since the ballot should be anonymous, the inner envelope remains sealed to maintain the association of the signature with the secret ballot.
There are many problems with the above-described traditional approach to voting. The voting process may be confusing to the inexperienced voter. While the voting packet is typically accompanied by instructional information, people may inappropriately sign the outer envelope, may forget to use the inner envelope, or may forget to sign the inner envelope. These errors may jeopardize their privacy and even the acceptance of their vote. Further, the assembly of the ballots is a complex process because the ballots, instructions, and envelopes must all be packaged into a packet of materials for each voter. In towns or jurisdictions with multiple districts or elections with multiple local referendum issues there may be many versions of the ballots which must be created, collated, and maintained in inventory for voters from each district. The process is also difficult to automate for high volume voting. Although absentee ballots may be processed manually, when large numbers of voters, such as an entire state, vote by mail and when answers are sought quickly and cheaply, problems can arise with timeliness of completing the vote counting process, cost and even accuracy.
This absentee ballot implementation also means that the person opening envelope B has an opportunity to associate the signature with the ballot, which means that the vote is no longer secret. An alternative embodiment in which four parts are used: ballot (A), inner anonymous sealer envelope (B), signed middle envelope (C), and outer mailing envelope (D) allows for the ballots to be separated from the signature envelope while remaining anonymous. This design, however, further complicates the voting process and also increases the labor associated with validating and counting the ballots because of the added envelope to open.
If instead the signature is placed on the mailing envelope, the voter's signature, mailing address and the voter's return address may be visible as the ballot passes through the mail. This poses a clear threat of identity theft if the envelope with signature and voter's return address is photographed, scanned or copied. Moreover, various jurisdictions, such as the State of Washington, have mandated that the voter signature be hidden from view on mailed absentee ballots. Flaps covering the signature panel to resolve the privacy issue without adding another envelope have been utilized to hide the signature but they are labor intensive to remove and the process is difficult to automate. The processing of such ballots can therefore be slow and expensive. This type of problem has been addressed, for example, in the system in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/262,616 for VOTE BY MAIL ENVELOPE filed Oct. 31, 2005, in the names of Bertrand Haas and Denis Stemmle and assigned to Pitney Bowes Inc. The application discloses a ballot envelope that covers the signature but allows reading of the signature through the flap without opening or with simplified opening.
These traditional forms of absentee voting with ballot, inner envelope, outer envelope and private absentee ballots with ballot, inner envelope, outer envelope with flap covering signature, have been processed by employing opening equipment such as grinding devices to cut off the edges of envelopes for automated opening or cutting blades or wheels to slide off the bottoms of envelopes for automated opening. Such type of devices and opening systems are employed for example in opening bill payments. The ballots themselves may be prepared similar to the continuous printing of W2 tax forms as required by the US Internal Revenue Service. That is, the ballot can be formed and printed using an internal piece of carbon or similar type paper.